Where There's Smoke
by moss28
Summary: She was written to heal, not to hurt. Or: Before you can fix a burn, first you have to put out the fire. {a prequel to Burning Blue}
"How can you stand by and let this happen?"

General Tesler pauses with one foot on the ramp leading into the ship. The hulking piece of machinery is perched on the outskirts of the city, far enough away that it isn't in immediate danger of being swallowed by Argon's fire, but still close enough that Paige can feel the radiant heat creeping up her back. He's obviously displeased by the delay, and he looks back at her with an irritated scowl.

"Let what happen?"

" _This_ ," she repeats, gesturing to their surroundings with the hand that isn't holding her datapad. CLU's last message is still displayed prominently on the screen. Argon was completely removed from under the General's jurisdiction, and he was expected to leave with his officers as soon as possible. "You're just going to let him destroy an entire _city_ for the sake of one program?"

"He isn't just one program, Paige. He's the _Renegade_."

She goes a little numb at the mention of the moniker.

 _Beck._

CLU had been informed as soon as the program's true identity had been discovered. It was then that the Admin had asserted his control over Argon, and it was less than a microcycle later that the bombings began.

After all of the dishonesty, the thought that Beck would burn alongside his home should have made Paige feel better.

It doesn't.

"I wouldn't put it past Pavel to leave without us," Telser grumbles. He was furious at the loss of his command position, but seems comparatively unfazed by CLU's method of handling matters. "CLU can be as wasteful as he wants, I don't care. I care about us getting out of here alive."

"An entire _city_ , General. How can this be the right way to get programs on our side? How can this be _perfection_?"

He moves closer to her, his towering frame suddenly making her feel incredibly small.

"An entire city. _Ten_ entire cities. Whatever it takes to set an example. It's the same reason why we have the Games; to show programs our way is the only way."

"This is… it's _different_ , this isn't-"

"We have to demonstrate what happens to programs who stand in our way. Pavel gets it; I don't know why _you_ don't. I would think that after that mess at the medical center, you'd understand the power of making an example, considering that's exactly what those ISOs made of you and your friends."

Two lines of thought connect in that moment. The medical center and the ISOs. Argon and the Renegade. _Setting an example, showing the truth_.

Except it isn't the truth. It's the farthest thing _from_ the truth. It's cutting a path of senseless destruction for the sole purpose of instilling fear in the core of every program left alive. The Occupation will spread the news that this was all the Renegade's doing, that by refusing to give himself up he condemned an entire city to death. If only he'd been smart, if only he'd seen the righteousness of the Luminary, this all could have been avoided.

Except it's a _lie_. CLU could target the Renegade and the Renegade alone, and it would be far simpler to eliminate a singular threat than to eliminate all of Argon. But he has to make a _point_.

 _That mess at the medical center..._

Her datapad slips from her hands and shatters on the ground, scattering crystal shards around her boots. As she glances down at the broken fragments, Paige thinks of voxels littering a dimly lit hallway, of scooping a photo of her best friends out of what could have very well been their remains.

In her processors, the image has always been clear; Quorra and Ada tearing the helpless medics to pieces, sometimes with their discs and sometimes with merely their bare hands. It's as real and as visceral as if Paige had borne witness to it herself, and it loops through her processors on near-constant repeat. Only now it shifts, changes, and Quorra's eerily smiling visage is replaced with Tesler's looming countenance. And he pulls Rox apart first, dismantling her voxel by voxel as she screams and _begs_ and-

"You," she whispers. "It wasn't the ISOs, it was _never_ the ISOs. _You_ were the one who… who _murdered_ them."

He laughs. Clipped and cold and utterly without humor, but he _laughs_.

"They were traitors, Paige. They helped the ISOs before turning them in, and we couldn't trust that they hadn't been _contaminated_. They were traitors, not like you-"

"Not like _me_?" she echoes, voice pitched up in her disbelief. He didn't even attempt to deny it. "I was a _medic_ , I helped them, too. My friends didn't do _anything_ wrong, and you _murdered_ them for it."

She looks at him, searching his features for a sign of regret or a hint of remorse. Something, _anything_ , to suggest that derezzing innocent programs – her _friends_ – made his sleep cycles uneasy. That allowing her to live a lie was something he wrestled with in his processors as much as she wrestled with the thoughts of their undeserved ends.

She looks at him and listens to Argon burn, and the only thing she sees is the blue-green firelight glinting in his eyes, casting harsh shadows across his angular features. There is nothing but cool impassivity in his expression, nothing but an impatient frown that says _I did what needed to be done_.

Despite the thickening atmosphere and the heat and confusion that are making her head swim, it is, perhaps, the clearest she has ever seen him.

"Where do you think you're going?"

She had taken a step back without realizing, and she jumps, slightly, at his words. Her head turns sharply away from him, allowing her an uninhibited view of the havoc the Occupation has wrought. Buildings are toppling, the screams of derezzing scripts mingling with the persistent roar of the flames. The city is dying, CLU is _killing_ it, and he will eliminate every civilian life regardless of what happens to the Renegade.

"Commander Paige, you-"

"I'm a medic."

It comes out like an apology, spoken more to the careless destruction than to Tesler himself.

"What?"

When she looks at him, now, she doesn't have to search for a confirmation of what she already knows. Her face has fallen into an unreadable mask, a remnant of a soldier's training put unconsciously into practice. The smoldering in her eyes is the only thing that gives her emotions away, and it is not a mere reflection of the carnage around them.

Instead, it is a reflection of the sparking, simmering _rage_ that bubbles inside of her.

"I'm a medic, and Argon is burning, and-" _and a renegade mechanic is lying dead in the streets and_ \- "and I _have_ to help him."

Though she hadn't been expecting him to plead with her, something inside of Paige crumbles when Tesler pivots on his heel and stalks back to his ship without another word. Everything, _everything_ she had known and believed is nothing but smoke, now. Burned away like Argon, purged in the crystalline flames.

Nothing left but ash.

A lesser program might have taken it as a sign of the end. With no clear function, no one giving orders, she has nothing. _Is_ nothing. A lost program in a city on the brink of annihilation. But Commander Paige is not so easily brought down. She rezzes her helmet, a single sentence falling from her lips as she puts the command ship behind her and makes for the smoking heart of Argon.

"I'm a medic."

Her circuits flicker to another hue, waver, settle back to rusty red. She assumes it to be a trick of the light as she disappears into the smoke, hoping and praying that it isn't already too late.

Argon burns blue, the Occupation ships and soldiers burn red, and for a brief, scorching moment, the circuits of Paige the medic burn a brilliant, indisputable green.

* * *

Activity has tapered off by the time she finds him. Guards are sweeping for survivors, who only qualify as survivors until red-rimmed discs finish them off unceremoniously. Each death sits heavily in her core, but she forces herself to press forward. It's a race to find the Renegade. To find Beck. CLU and Tesler and Pavel are all proving their points with choked cries and lethal action, and now Paige must prove hers.

Argon can burn. But programs and their spirits and their _truths_ will not be so easily wiped away.

Another figure stands over Beck, who's splayed on the ground with his white suit standing stark against ashen surroundings. It doesn't take a trained eye to see the gash across his abdomen or the way his chest is heaving frantically. His helmet is off, and he's watching the figure with impossibly wide eyes as he scrambles desperately backwards on all fours, shaking his head as twin discs hum to life and angle themselves for a killing blow.

It's too late. She's too far away to intervene, even at the breakneck pace at which she's climbing over rubble to get to him. And Rinzler is too swift and too strong, and she knows that CLU's newest pet project will stop at nothing to carry out his orders.

Beck's arms give out and he collapses in a heap, and Paige is too far away to intervene as the Enforcer winds back and makes to strike.

However, Paige is not too far away to hear Beck cry out.

"Tron, _please_!"

Many things happen at once. Paige arrives at Beck's side just in time to throw herself over him protectively, her disc raised and ready as she prepares to die fighting. Beck shuts down fitfully, the pain and fear and damage too much for his overtaxed processors, and he assumes himself to already be dead when he sees Paige lunging to his defense.

And Rinzler stumbles, drops his discs in favor of clutching wildly at his helmet as old memories burn through him, stronger and brighter than even the flames ravishing Argon.

" _Go_."

Paige's disc-wielding arm lowers a fraction, and she watches with mute horror as the Enforcer sinks to his knees, fingers lacing behind his neck as he presses his helmeted head against the ground.

"Take him. _Go_." His voice scrapes and rasps from his throat, and Paige can't help but wince. Suddenly he sits back up, ragged breaths rattling through his airways as he growls, "Run. _Now_."

She doesn't understand what's happening, but she doesn't _need_ to understand. Paige scrambles to her feet, loops her arms under Beck's shoulders, and begins dragging him away as quickly and as carefully as she can manage. They're halfway down a block when she pauses for long enough to look behind her.

Rinzler and his discs are gone.

* * *

By herself, she can only carry him so far. Despite the fact that her instincts are screaming at her to keep moving, she has no choice but to stop. As soon as she comes across a relatively secluded area, Paige lays the Renegade down and sits down hard beside him.

His expression is oddly peaceful as he hovers between sleep mode and deresolution, and it occurs to her that this is the first time she's seen the Renegade without his mask. Somehow, despite the fact that she'd already known who he really was, confirming it for herself makes it all the more real.

After giving herself a moment to rest, she maneuvers so that she can get a better look at his wounds. Thankfully, the damage on his midsection is the worst of it, but it's a deep cut. It's not something she can mend completely without supplies, but she can try to patch it over before it gets any worse.

Her hands are just brushing his chest when a voice sounds from nearby.

"Let him go."

She expects to be met with the sight of an Occupation guard on patrol, or Rinzler come to complete his task. And she steels herself for a fight, because like the fire tearing through Argon, if this is her end, then she will take as much down with her as she can.

She doesn't expect to see blue circuits when she tilts her head to appraise the intruder. But his alliance doesn't change the fact that he's brandishing his disc, and might kill her just as readily as any red warrior would. If they fight, she could win. She could continue struggling along until she found a vehicle to commandeer, and then…

She could burn her way through every obstacle, and Beck would still die without proper help.

"I'm a medic," _and Argon is burning,_ _and a renegade mechanic is lying dead in the streets and_ \- "I _have_ to help him."

"You're with the Occupation. I don't think he needs _your_ kind of help."

She could burn her way through every obstacle, including this program, and Beck would still be cubes before the end of the microcycle.

Or she could let green wash away red, let the festering, angry pyre within her core die back, and hope that this program might help save Beck's life.

Her helmet falls away.

"I'm a _medic_."

There's hesitation before he docks his disc, and Paige fears that it might come to a fight regardless of her words. But then he's telling her something about Light Runners and helping her carry Beck out of the city, and she allows herself to feel some relief. Allows herself to believe that Beck will live. CLU and Tesler and Pavel have proven their points, and now Paige is ready to prove hers: Argon can burn all it cares to; there are some things in this world that will never fall apart.

Her circuits have taken on a greenish tint, and this time, Paige doesn't try to convince herself that it's a trick of the light.

Argon is burning.

The uprising goes on.


End file.
